President Threatens to Veto DOJ, DOD Funding

The other day, President Bush sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid. The letter has been covered by a variety of news outlets (e.g., including the NYT).

At first glance, the letter appears to be focused narrowly on abortion and stem-cell policies. The President begins the letter by writing that

I am concerned that this year Congress may consider legislation that could substantially change Federal policies and laws on abortion, and allow taxpayer dollars to be used for the destruction of human life.

He concludes by writing that

I will veto any legislation that weakens current Federal policies and laws on abortion, or that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage. [Emphasis added.]

The media--including even those liberals who so biasedly run the MSM--have failed to report the most notable features of this policy. Here are just two examples:

• Because the US Department of Justice as a matter of policy seeks the death penalty in some murder cases (e.g., see this part of the DOJ's Criminal Resource Manual), evidently it cannot be funded under the President's pledge to "veto any legislation ... that encourages the destruction of human life at any stage."

• The US Department of Defense regularly engages in activities that, as a matter of policy, involve "the destruction of human life at [multiple] stage[s]." A most notable example includes the ongoing conflict in Iraq, in which both combatants and noncombatants are regularly and predictably killed because of deliberate actions taken by US armed forces.
  

The President's new policy to veto all legislation whose execution (pardon the double entendre) would encourage--heck, even directly cause--"destruction of human life at any stage" seems to be a radical departure from his earlier embrace of the death penalty, war, "enhanced interrogation", and so on.

I for one am very surprised to hear of the President's conversion to philosophical pacifism. I do hope that he won't leave our nation defenseless, as some forms of the "destruction of human life" no doubt are necessary to safeguard freedom, private property, and other key objectives.